Bluegrass

“I’m here as a friend and a fan,” Grand Ole Opry star Jan Howard declared to a crowd of Jesse McReynolds’ closest friends and family on July 13th, 2014, in Gallatin, Tennessee. It was a lively gathering on a sunny Sunday at Jesse’s farm, the Pick Inn, to celebrate his 85th birthday and there was no shortage of tributes from Jesse’s colleagues, neighbors and friends. Nine of Nashville’s finest, Homer Bradley (the unofficial “Mayor of Cairo”), WSM announcer Eddie Stubbs, fiddle-

It's a rare opportunity for fans of American roots music to experience two modern masters of the banjo and fiddle together on one stage, performing a full set of originals and classics in a duo format.

Following a three-week tour of the Eastern states in January and February, the Michigan quintet heads West for a run through the Mountain states, four shows in California, before winding through the Pacific Northwest and then back through the Southeast with a duo of sets at Suwanee Springfest at the end of March.

Mandolinist, vocalist and songwriter Jeff Austin is joining forces with The Here and Now, featuring banjoist Danny Barnes and Larry & Jenny Keel on guitar and bass for several shows in the MidWest in early March 2014.

Almost a year ago The Masters of Bluegrass proudly announced their first ever show as a band with Del McCoury, JD Crowe, Bobby Hicks, Jerry McCoury, and Bobby Osborne in the lineup. After a year of playing some of the best venues and festivals in the country and making some amazing music and memories, this Sunday the bluegrass supergroup will play their last show in Naples, FL at The Philharmonic Center for the Arts.

The Infamous Stringdusters will embark on a winter tour starting in the Midwest, leading them to Boulder, Colorado and back east while raising the profile of the devastating floods that took place in Colorado in September. Additionally, The Infamous Stringdusters will release their first new single in nearly two years aptly named “Road To Boulder” written by the band’s Andy Hall while he was deciding whether to move from Nashville to Charlottesville, Virginia or Boulder, Colorado.

DETOUR bluegrass band announced last year they would be donating proceeds from the sales of their song "Homeless Of The Brave" to Goodwill’s Patriot Place project. Patriot Place is a transitional housing community for Northern Michigan’s homeless veterans. Last week, songwriter and band member, Jeff Rose presented another $1,000 check to Lilly Nowicki, Event and Database Coordinator with Goodwill.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about 1 in 88 children has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), affecting over two million people around the country and tens of millions worldwide; a ten-fold increase in prevalence in 40 years. Research suggests that the increase is only partly explained by improved diagnosis and awareness. As ASD continues to gain a grip on our children, a movement to fight back also continues to gain momentum.

The prayers of roots-music fans will at long last be answered on Sept. 17 with the release of Memories & Moments, the second studio album from highly regarded writer/singer/multi-instrumentalists Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott, released on their newly formed Full Skies imprint, a compound of O’Brien’s Howdy Skies and Scott’s Full Light labels through Thirty Tigers.